Wild Rose
by Chaos Dragon
Summary: When Danny is caught doing something he shoudn't be doing, the consequences spread a little farther than he anticipated. DxS


Wild Rose

It had been a rough night, Danny mused as he glanced at his watch. Three a.m., and he'd only just finished with his part of the homework. Sort of. It had been done mostly by Sam and Tucker, his lab partners and his best friends. He had just promised to type it out and deliver disks so that they could print their own copies, neither trusting any of the electronics in Danny's house to be safe.

Point of fact, the printer that was currently printing his copy and leaving faint green 'ghost free' labels every two inches or so.

No, he'd leave a note for Sam or Tucker to print him a copy. Anything would be better than handing in another ectoplasmically tainted report that would chase teachers and students for half the day before he managed to catch it. That incident had earned him two weeks worth of detentions with Lancer until someone had managed to convince the vice principal that it wasn't Danny's fault.

Of course, he'd already served eight of the ten days. Hardly a miracle there.

At least it had been better than The Incident in his sophomore year. He winced as he phased to ghost and slipped through his wall, two disks in hand and headed for Tucker's house. Two years after the fact and The Incident still rated capital letters, no matter how many times he'd tried to convince Sam he hadn't been trying to peek.

How the hell was he supposed to know that the screaming and suddenly ransacked room was because her mother had decided to update Sam's wardrobe? There'd been no way, and when he'd heard her screaming he'd automatically assumed she was being attacked and had hurtled into her room without so much as a by your leave as Phantom.

And found a very angry Sam Manson in nothing but a towel.

That had earned him a black eye and yet another blushy moment recorded in Tucker's PDA. There were thousands by now, but that was the most embarrassing. More than embarrassing, since Tucker hadn't been very far behind Danny and had made it through Sam's house and up the stairs in time to see an enraged Sam towering over the terrified Danny on the floor.

Ah, memories.

Silently Danny drifted through the wall of Tucker's house and into his room, dropping on disk next to his beloved PDA and then rummaging around to find a pencil and scrap of paper for a note. That in itself was a task worthy of several attempts, since Tucker's room was inevitably filled with as many high-tech electronics as he could get his hands on.

But Danny did find what he needed, and without going through Tucker's backpack. He scribbled his hasty note and stuck it on top of the PDA, hoping that Tucker wouldn't miss it. At least there was a decent chance Tucker would be awake enough to fulfill the request. Of the three friends, he was the only one who approached morning person. Sam didn't wake up until noon, at the earliest, and Danny managed to still be asleep on his feet till last period.

Sometimes later, he decided as his flight to Sam's was interrupted by a flash of faint blue mist that streamed past his lips, the exhalation ending on a groan as he looked down and within moments found what he was looking for. With a sigh he altered the angle of his flight and sped down to street level to confront, and the back of his mind shuddered in disgust, a giant slimy ghost slug.

Twenty minutes, gallons of snail goo and a wrenched shoulder later, Danny was headed again for Sam's house, a full Fenton thermos slung across his back and the precious disk still in hand. And mostly unharmed. He'd wiped as much of the snail goo off as he could before he actually thought about it and phased himself and the disk intangible, letting the slime slide of both and coat the ground beneath where he floated.

Without a backwards glance Danny shot back up into the air and flew towards Sam's house, slowing only when it came in sight and he was passing through the window of her room and dropping softly to the floor. He balanced easily on the balls of his feet and silver flashed around him as he became Fenton again. He'd made it a habit sometime in the summer before their junior year when Sam complained that anytime he dropped by for a ghostly visit she froze because of the drop in temperature.

Reasonably Tucker had pointed out that if she actually used blankets, or even a sheet, it wouldn't be a problem. It had devolved from there into a carnivore versus herbivore debate with Sam being compared to a tree that couldn't survive winter and Tucker admitting readily that his meat heavy diet enabled him to sleep under pounds of linen in a hibernatory state.

And Lancer said he never learned anything, Danny thought with a snort as he moved catlike to Sam's desk and dropped the disk next to her keyboard. He turned around carefully, watching Sam like a hawk and hoping she wouldn't wake up. He didn't _think_ she'd be angry with him, but why take the chance? It wasn't like she wasn't used to waking up and finding homework left for her.

Of course, she was more used to waking up and finding homework missing. Those were the nights that Danny did not sleep at all.

But there was one thing that Danny hadn't counted on as he headed back to the window to go into ghost mode and find his way home and to his own bed. It was, he knew, a bit of a psychological problem. Sam and Jazz called it his hero complex. Tucker called it pure stupidity. Danny preferred to think of it as morality. But it usually landed him in a lot of trouble, and tonight would probably be no different.

If he hadn't taken the one last look at Sam, hadn't noticed that even to him, with a lower body temperature than a full human, the room was cold, he wouldn't have decided to grab the sheet she habitually kicked to the floor at the foot of her bed and cover her with it. And if he hadn't done that he figured his careful control wouldn't have snapped, even for the two minutes it took to land him in his current troubles.

The fact that he was standing in Sam Manson's bedroom at four in the morning watching her sleep. When she was wearing nothing but a very small black tank top and matching black panties.

He admitted to himself as he stood there with the sheet clutched in his hands, it wasn't the first time he had watched Sam while she slept. But it was, his hormones screamed at him, the first time he had ever seen her in such a state of undress. The towel from The Incident had definitely covered more than these tiny scraps of fabric, and he bit back a groan as he realized this was not a healthy occupation for a healthy seventeen year old boy.

Even if he was already half dead. Because he had no desire to become fully dead.

But it still wasn't the fact that he was watching her sleep, or the fact that she was wearing next to nothing that was causing him such trouble. It wasn't even the fact that the careful walls he had blocked Sam into in his mind were eroding as he let himself think about what would happen if he just happened to tell Sam how he felt. No, it was the fact that she was sprawled across her bed, one slim leg slung over a pillow and the other making a pale line down her bed.

A pale line that was dotted with a dark bruised area high up, and Danny's hero complex was currently urging him to take a closer look, to see if someone had hurt Sam. And if they had to take care of them. Most likely in a way that would involve the ghost zone, a concrete filled bucket, and a set of chains. And never mind that Sam wouldn't thank him for interfering in her life.

It was the damned hero complex that got him into trouble all the time that made him lean closer, only for him to flinch back as she rolled a little more to the side and slid her leg a little forward to reveal… a tattoo. A rose, a black rose, tattooed high on the inside of her left thigh.

Two seconds later Danny was phasing through the floor and only managed to stop himself when he was nearly twenty feet inside the earth.

---

He realized, in retrospect, that it wasn't really the hero complex that had caused the problem. It was the fact that he couldn't keep his mouth shut, the fact that he often spoke without thinking. The fact that he hadn't slept at all and every waking moment between extracting himself from underground and making it to lunch had been spent with visions of black ink on pale skin dancing through his mind.

"Danny, you aren't listening to a word I've said," Sam said pointedly as she waggled her fork in front of his eyes.

Tucker snickered as Danny rejoined them and looked up from his PDA. "You're even more of a space cadet than usual, Danny. Did something happen last night?" he asked pointedly as he glanced back and forth between Danny and Sam.

Sam arched one eyebrow as she poked her fork into her salad, dancing the leaves at Danny as he turned red and stuttered, "Nothing happened. I just dropped the disk off, went home. Had a problem with a slug," he added as he opened a bag of chips, "But that was it. It wasn't like I stood around in Sam's room and watched her sleep again."

"Excuse me?" Sam said in a low, dangerous voice. "You watched me sleep? _Again_?"

"No," Danny muttered as he looked down, face flaming to his ears and praying Sam didn't do him permanent injury.

"Where is my sheet?" she asked in the same icy voice.

A snort interrupted her glare as Tucker coughed. "Sorry, tried to suck that laugh down. Didn't work." He turned to Danny. "You took her s_heet_?"

"No!" he exclaimed. "I didn't take her sheet. It was an accident."

"So where is it?" Sam and Tucker asked at the same time.

"Somewhere underneath your house?" Danny responded, the rose dancing across his eyes again, and he blinked as Tucker dissolved into a fit of laughter and Sam just gaped at him. "Why didn't you tell me you had a tattoo?" he blurted before his brain caught up with his mouth.

"She has a what?" Tucker gasped as Sam inhaled sharply. Danny flushed as he realized he'd said exactly what he hadn't wanted to.

"You were _spying_ on me?" Sam yelped as she stood, bumping the table and knocking over Tucker's soda. Without warning she picked up her barely touched salad and smashed it into Danny's face making sure to smear it so that the salad dressing made it everywhere, from his face to his hair. "You stay away from me, Daniel Fenton," she hissed as she snatched up her backpack and stalked off without a backwards glance.

He winced as she used his full name and didn't move as lettuce, tomatoes and salad dressing dripped from his head. "She hates me, doesn't she?" he said to no one in particular after a moment before beginning to wipe the salad from his face.

Tucker was staring at him, mouth still hanging open.

"_Kushiel's Dart_, Fenton! What happened here?" Mr. Lancer boomed as he came up from behind Danny. "You look like you survived a ghost attack!"

"No ghosts here," Danny answered quickly. "Just…" he winced. Misunderstanding was a little tame compared to what had actually happened. "Just a mistake. I, uh, knocked the salad over…"

Oh yeah, that was going to work, he said silently as he closed his eyes and wiped his face with a napkin. Lancer was going to buy that. At this rate he'd have detention again, something he'd already managed to avoid for the week, and if his luck was holding Sam would be sharing it. He wouldn't survive detention if someone ratted Sam out.

But he couldn't blame her.

But Tucker saved him, as always. "Sam had an emergency to take care of, Mr. Lancer. Danny just knocked the salad with her backpack when he was handing it to her," he was saying while Danny stared at the table.

"An emergency? Where is she? I'll need to take her to the nurse," the teacher rambled on as Tucker glanced at Danny and then up at him.

"Um, not that kind of emergency," Tucker said quietly.

Danny grimaced as he realized what Tucker was trying to suggest, and then just shook his head. This was already a nightmare. He was going to have so much detention after this. Wordlessly he gathered up his backpack and lunch tray, dropping the latter at the garbage cans and then heading through the halls silently until he found an empty corridor to go ghost.

He barely glanced around before shifting to Phantom and immediately shot up through the roof, turning automatically and flying straight for Sam's house. There was no way she'd still be at school, not the Sam Manson he knew. She'd have left in a hurry in all of her angry gothness, and if he was lucky he could catch up with her before he'd have to break the sanctity of her room again.

It wasn't to be, he realized with a pained cry as he flew directly into the ghost shield he had supplied Sam with at the end of their junior year. Tucker had one, too, but as far as Danny knew neither of them had ever activated it. It was activated now, and he hit the ground with a thud.

"Dammit, Sam," he cursed quietly as he stood up and put a hand to his head, hoping that all of her cracks about it being so hard were actually true. All he needed to cap off his day was a concussion.

He glanced around again and phased back to Fenton, then walked through the shield and to Sam's front door. He rang the bell and waited. And waited. And waited. He rang the bell again. Danny had actually devolved to pounding on the door for fifteen straight minutes when Sam's butler answered the door and Danny started to walk in.

The butler stopped him. "Mr. Fenton, you are to remove yourself from the property before I'm forced to call the police," he said in a cultured tone as he looked down his nose at Danny. Okay, so maybe kind of up his nose, but still, Danny wasn't making any headway.

"I just want to see Sam," Danny said as he tried to shove past the man.

A snap of fingers brought a large man down on Danny and he struggled and shifted in the man's grip as he was forcefully shoved to the door and off the stoop. "She doesn't want to see you," was all the man said as he slammed the door.

There was a moment when Danny actually tried to shift to ghost, but he collapsed on the ground with a cry as pain lanced through him. Stupid, he thought. He knew better than to try and shift under the shield. It had been the same before, when Youngblood and Ember had stolen the ghost shield from Fenton Works and he'd tried to shift on the pirate ship.

The only reason he could still shift under the one at home was because Tucker had tweaked it to let him go ghost underneath it. It was the only one like that. He'd demanded that Tucker leave the shields he'd given him and Sam alone. It was better that Danny be stuck as a human underneath it than run the risk that Plasmius get on the inside and be able to hurt either one of them.

In fact, the thought of that had driven him into such a frenzy that he'd very nearly asked Tucker to untweak the shield at home. But he hadn't. He'd left it the way it was, one of a kind, even if his parents didn't realize it had been tinkered with.

"Sam!" Danny yelled up at her window. "I just want to talk to you." There was no answer. He tried again, but this time the answer he got was one he didn't want. Sirens in the distance, growing louder as they got closer.

He went pale, looked from Sam's window to the still empty street then back. "Sam, please," he called up. But there was still no response and Danny gave in to the panic as the sirens kept coming. He ran past the edges of the shield and found an empty alley, changing to Phantom before shooting up into the sky and flying for home.

He spent the rest of the night calling her house.

---

Three days later the ghost shield was still up. Four days later Sam still hadn't come back to school, the excuse handed in to the teacher's being a head cold that Danny knew was a lie. Six days later Danny skipped school again to sit outside Sam's house until she talked to him. Seven days later Danny was booked on charges of stalking. Nine days later the charges were dropped.

Eleven days later Danny stopped trying to see her.

---

Sixteen days later Sam was let into the Fenton house at seven in the morning by a very confused and concerned Jazz. "He was arrested because of you," was all Jazz could say as Sam folded her umbrella away. It was cold outside, but not cold enough for the drizzle to turn to snow.

Sam shook her head, her short black hair swaying around her face. "That wasn't my idea. Mr. Lancer found out that we'd had a fight. My mom… My mom thought that something that didn't happen happened." Sam sighed disgustedly. "I'm allowed to go back to school on Monday."

Jazz watched Sam carefully, her mind racing. "I heard something had happened. That it involved salad, and you dumping it on Danny. The rumors didn't start until after Danny was arrested."

Sam winced. "I got them to drop the charges."

"What the hell?" Jazz burst out with. "He said you used the ghost shield against him!"

"Did he also mention that he'd been in the habit of stopping by my room for extended visits while I was asleep?" Sam asked as she crossed her arms in front of her. Jazz flushed and Sam gave her a faint smile. "I was angry. For like a day."

"It's been more than two weeks."

"I know," was all Sam said. Then, "I wanted to see him."

"He's still asleep," Jazz said as Sam started up the stairs. "He's not going to end up in jail again is he?"

Sam laughed a little. "No. Mom is currently reassured that I'm single and a virgin. Don't ask," she said before Jazz could. "Trust me, you don't want to know."

Danny's door was closed, but that wasn't unusual for seven a.m. on a Saturday morning. Sam turned the knob and opened it slowly, quietly, slipping through and closing it behind her before turning to face the boy she'd been avoiding for more than two weeks. Forced to avoid, yes, but she hadn't even been able to talk to him and explain.

And she knew that he'd given up. This was bound to turn out badly.

He was asleep. That was normal. And tangled in his blankets on his stomach, looking paler than pale as his dark hair fell over his forehead and into his closed eyes. Sam smiled a little and moved quietly. She didn't want to startle him into wakefulness, but she knew she was going to anyway. She sat down on the bed as carefully as she could but the movement of the mattress was enough.

She was greeted by a sudden flip and glowing green eyes as she was held down against the bed. She squeaked and the fist of raised energy faded into nonexistence as Danny sat back on the bed and blinked at her. She realized he was still mostly asleep and was barely processing that she wasn't a danger to him.

Or not processing at all as he continued to stare blankly.

"Danny?" she asked softly, waving a hand in front of his face.

"I'm still asleep, aren't I?" he asked, and Sam laughed.

"No. You're not sleeping. I'm sorry," she said.

"What are you doing here?" he asked in confusion, the hurt written loud across his face. "I did what you wanted. I left you alone."

Sam shook her head. "Not my idea."

"You put the ghost shield up, Sam," he whispered.

"What? You think I liked doing that?" she said suddenly. "You think I liked the bodyguards, the way they hovered over me? I kept your secret Danny. Just don't ask what it cost me."

The hurt on Danny's face was washed away by surprise and concern. Sam sighed. Oh yes, the hero complex had reared its ugly little head, and she bit back the annoyance as he did exactly what she'd asked him not to. He asked.

"What do you mean, Sam? What's been going on in your house?"

And she glared. "Didn't I say not to ask?" Humor seeped through a little; she knew that Danny had absolutely no control over himself when he got going, especially when he started giving himself a guilt trip. "Look, it was my fault really. If I hadn't dressed you up in lettuce I don't think Lancer would've called my mom."

Danny flushed. "He called your mom? Oh god. Life loves me. And she assumed what? That it was a lover's spat? Oh, oh, I know. That you're pregnant with my child and I didn't support you properly. Ooh, wait, even better, I cheated on you with Paulina. While you're pregnant with my lovechild."

Sam cracked up. She really, truly couldn't help it, since he'd nailed it on the head. "The first," she said as she collapsed back across his bed. "You'll be happy to know we're not having any kids."

Danny groaned and buried his face in his hands. "We're not even dating, much less sleeping with each other."

"She knows now. She's suitably informed that I'm not intimate with anyone, and that we're not dating." The silent _yet_ echoed in her head. "Ghost shield's off. And it's staying that way, Danny, unless there's an attack."

"I appreciate it," he muttered.

"So," Sam said as she shifted to her side, lilac eyes boring into his baby blues. "About the sheet. And the spying. And the tattoo."

He raised his hands in a defensive motion. "I'm sorry, alright? I was just dropping the disk off, I wasn't trying to… It looked like someone had hurt you," he said pitifully. "I just wanted to make sure."

She quirked an eyebrow up. "And that would be why you lost control of your powers?"

"Look, Sam, you're a pretty girl, and… No way I say this is going to come out right," he muttered and shoved off the bed, pacing to the far end of his room before stopping and leaning against the wall.

Sam, on the other hand, had gone back to lounging on her back, as much to hide how red she'd become as to keep herself from watching as he paced steadily. Even in the sweats and tee-shirt, she could easily make out the definition of lean muscle that three years of fighting had given him. It was one of the reasons she liked his tight fitting hazmat so much.

"I stopped at Tucker's before I came here," she said into the silence.

"You had him up before me? And you're alive?" Danny said, amused.

"I climbed in through his window and woke him up with breakfast."

"You bribed him."

"I bribed him."

"Why?" Danny asked.

She lifted up off of the bed and turned to face him. "He had a lot to say about how you've been the last few weeks. He told me that you'd never make the first move." Danny turned red and Sam was rewarded with his stuttered protests. She followed him to the wall quietly and stopped less than a foot away from him.

"You watch me sleep," she said, no longer asking.

He dropped his eyes, saying, "Sometimes."

"Why?" she asked quietly, knowing that the first move had already been made, and it was up to Danny to keep Tucker alive. Because if this backfired, she was going to kill him. Slowly, and painfully, most likely with a very blunt object and maybe some nails. Big, six inch long, concrete nails.

She watched him steadily, and was rewarded by the lift of his head after a dejected sigh. His eyes were shuttered and he looked fairly pitiful as he stared at her. She reached a hand out, grabbed his wrist and held on to it as she felt his pulse jump under her fingers. "Why, Danny?"

He blinked, then whispered, "Because." Sam bit her lip in frustration and closed her eyes, preparing to tell him off for being a coward when she felt his lips on hers and her eyes flew open.

Her eyes slipped back closed and she leaned into him, letting her hands slide up his arms until hers were wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer. His mouth was gentle but insistent on hers, and her lips curved in a smile as she kissed him.

"Because," she repeated when he finally broke the kiss. "I see," she said.

He still looked nervous to her, but much of the tension had gone out of him. "Because," he repeated, and nothing else. "Sam," he whispered.

She smiled. "You lost control of your powers because."

He smiled and kissed her again. "Something like that." His blue eyes danced. "So when did you get the tattoo?"

"Hmm. When I was sixteen. You'd be surprised what people will do for a couple thousand dollars."

He raised an eyebrow. "You know, I didn't really get to see it all that well."

She lifted on her toes, pressed her lips to his. "All in good time."

---

Kushiel's Dart is written by Jacqueline Carey. Visit her site (www dot jacqueline carey dot com) for more information on this book and the rest of the brilliant Kushiel's Legacy series.

**Edited: 09/18/2006.**


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